International

In a press conference on Tuesday, February 3 at the Firehouse Center for the Visual Arts, it was announced that the city of Burlington will receive $100,000 from the government of Quebec, supporting the city's preparations for the 2009 Burlington International Waterfront Festival. In attendance at the conference were festival producer and Vermont filmmaker Jay Craven, Burlington Mayor Bob Kiss, Vermont Commissioner of Tourism and Marketing Bruce Hyde and Burlington City Arts Director Doreen Kraft.

St. Michael's College Edmundite Center for Peace and Justice sponsored panel discussion. Moderated by Laurie Gagne with panelists: Omar Badder of American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee; Gregory Gause, UVM Middle Eastern Studies; Michael Schaal, son of Holocaust Survivors with family in Israel.

Suresh Premachandran, Parliament member from Sri Lanka talks about impunity and violation of inalienable rights of Tamil people in Sri Lanka.
Sam Mayfield met with Suresh at his home in Tamil Nadu, India.

Journalists are being killed, arrested and banned from entering and reporting from combat zone areas. Civilians are being held in refugee camps within their own country while the government bombards its own citizens.
Suresh is from the northern district of Jaffna in Sri Lanka, currently this area is the most adversely affected by the war.
Facing threats to his life for speaking out against government aggression he has moved his family several times in recent years from Sri Lanka, to India, Canada and finally back to India.

Suresh talks about the welfare camps, ceasefire agreement, the Sri Lankan government's want for continuing the war in the name of creating a single ethno country and the need for the global community to speak up.
Suresh can be reached at kandiah57@hotmail.com

A brief history of Sri Lanka and the Ealam struggle according to Thozhar Thiagu, activist and General Secretary of the Tamil National Liberation Movement in Tamil Nadu, India.

Sam Mayfield met with Thiagu at his office and at his home in Chennai, Tamil Nadu in February 2009.

The struggle for Tamils in Sri Lanka continues despite the alleged end of the war in May 2009. Tens of thousands of civilians were killed in the final weeks of war. Hundreds of thousands of civilians are displaced without food, shelter or medical supplies. Seeking refuge from government bombardment of their homeland in the north and eastern provinces, thousands of Tamils have fled from Sri Lanka since the mid 1980's.